Trying to get to work

[Deleted]

Me again. It is Friday afternoon.

I have only been using our trains on a few days recently. There is a big notice at our station in Beckton saying how they are 98% reliable or something like that.

Wednesday morning had to go somewhere down the Waterloo railway for the day. I set off with lots of spare time. The DLR worked alright but you always know there are problems when it gets into Canning Town and the platform is absolutely crowded end to end. Just to be helpful, half of the platform there is also closed off by boards at the moment because they are doing a project to 'relieve congestion'. A strange way to relieve it by increasing it, but never mind. Down escalator, Jubilee train just sat there, all full, some announcements that it is waiting. What to do? Some people going back up but I get in and wait. Anyway in a few minutes there is a message and we go off, sometimes stopping in the tunnels, until Bermindsey, when there is another message that there is now a second problem - driver sounded really fed up when he said 'second' - a train now stopped in front at Southwark and we all will have to wait. Do you remember I said I had lots of spare time? Well, after about 10 minutes on we go, get to Waterloo where there are the most hugest crowds of people trying to go to Canary Wharf, so it's going to be another big late to work day there, I really have to push through them to get to the escalator. By the way, one of these is not working also and has the big blue boards round it, that is probably to 'relieve congestion' as well.

Ah well, I must have been in that unlucky 2%, just like all those many people going the other way. Oh, and the last time I went from Waterloo to this same customer, I saw exactly the same crush and people stopped coming in there. Did I say lots of spare time? I just catch my train.

OK, Thursday morning, just into Canary Wharf office. I don't normally get the DLR in the morning, but surely it can't go wrong this time. Off towards Canning Town, so nearly get there, when we stop, there is a message, the electricity has apparently been turned off, and then we go backwards to Royal Victoria station, where we are told to get off and carry on by feet or by bus. Now I don't think there is any bus here, and I don't really know the way, so I wait a while and then a message that another train is coming. If I can only get to Canning Town the Jubilee train is an alternative, although my office is by the DLR.

So we all get on again, second train set off, then it stops and there is another message that the electricity has been turned off again and so we go backwards again to Royal Victoria. Oh, what a disorganisation.

I think the people giving the message about the walking to Canning Town should try it one day in girls office shoes. Anyway my little feet, here we go, I have to work out the way. About 30 minutes it turns out, not the best of neighborhoods to be walking in either. Useful to be on the phone to people in my office - which of course I can see in the distance - waiting for me. Manager says to get a taxi but there arent any at all. So Canning Town, Jubilee Line again, about an hour late. So fed up that I go first into Carluccio's in Canary Wharf, get coffee and sugary treat, sit down, kick off shoes, big sigh.

If its 98% reliable then all my rides for the next 5 years have to be perfect I presume.

[Deleted]

Lucky I missed that, I had passed Canning Town around 14:00ish.
Diana, did they even enlighten you as to precisely why the traction current had been discharged?

[Chris M]

I don't know about this incident, but I think it was last week where I got caught up in a delay when traction current had to be switched off in the Poplar/West India Quay area due to a trespasser on the track. Fortunately the train I was on got held at Blackwall from where I could get a bus to my destination.

As for the reliability, that's 98% of trains not 98% of passenger journeys, and even then a train is on time if it's 4 minutes 59 seconds or less late.

[messiah]

Thursday morning was the tresspasser.

Wednesday morning was severe delays on the Jubilee

[Deleted]

The DLR probably is 98% reliable as advertised, the first journey you refer to you got to Canning Town without a hitch, after that you’re on the Jubilee which is an entirely different railway. The second incident appears to have been caused by a member of the public so they wouldn’t count that and to be fair you can’t blame them for something that wasn’t their fault. In those two cases it performed 100%.

Tip from all my female friends, keep your office shoes in your bag and wear flats or trainers for your commute. When you have a spare minute check out alternative routes, if you get stuck at Canning Town when trying to get into town consider going one stop the other way to West Ham and jumping on the District/C2C or two stops to Stratford for the Central/Great Anglia. You’ll get to know all the bus routes after a while or check them out on TfL's website.

Another tip is go online and research the nearest minicab office to a given station on your route, I’ve got loads on my phone.

[snoggle]

May 19, 2012 4:42:41 GMT aslefshrugged said:

When you have a spare minute check out alternative routes, if you get stuck at Canning Town when trying to get into town consider going one stop the other way to West Ham and jumping on the District/C2C or two stops to Stratford for the Central/Great Anglia. You’ll get to know all the bus routes after a while or check them out on TfL's website.

Another tip is go online and research the nearest minicab office to a given station on your route, I’ve got loads on my phone.

I would definitely agree with the tip of always having a back up route or routes. The most frustrating aspect of a transport problem is being stuck and feeling helpless. Keeping moving reduces the stress as you feel more in control and that you're making progress. I had a number of routes for my regular commute so I could automaticallty adjust depending on what line decided to have a problem. ;D

With so much info available on smartphones these days it is easier to suss out things like when buses will turn up or if trains or tubes are running on other lines - assuming you're not stuck underground ! The way round that is to have the plan in your hand.

[Deleted]

According to info on the TfL website. DLR use a more stringent 3 min delay with reliability. But reliability as a % is a meaningless statistic. In a similar way to LU using number of trains in service. I am not sure how many trains trundle down the Beckton branch. Appears to be a 5 min frequency for most of the day. 20 hour traffic day. Therefore even a 98% reliability means a number of delays each day. Then multiply that over a week, month, period. But once a train has gone beyond 3 mins late the delays are all wrapped into one pointless statistic. Of the remaining trains where they 3.5 mins late ( hardly a problem) or where they 3 hours late?

Regarding congestion - there are only 2 long term ways to manage it. Either improve capacity or reduce demand. Improving capacity with running longer trains, more trains, faster trains has been done with the DLR and Jubilee. So what is stage 2? Even longer trains? Even more trains?

The other option is of course to reduce demand. The current government have done much to reduce the job market but do we see an increase in fares? (price poor people off he trains). Do we see companies change working hours? Do we see people change their commuter habits so they leave earlier/ later to spread the crush? Currently reducing demand is keeping people waiting at gatelines but how sustainable is that?

Lastly that 3 min reliability measure. Presuming there is not significant padding with the timetable. That is a tough measure. Not sure many people could drive through rush hour London and guarantee they would arrive at their place of work within 3 mins 98% of the time.

Personally the only way forward is to build new links, new lines and create additional capacity.

[grahamhewett]

@stig

You are right that there are only two ways out of this - more capacity/less demand. The problem with increasing capacity is that demand increases to reflect the capacity available (an unfortunate message that I spent much of my career concealing from the Treasury); in fact, the analyses we did showed that after Central London employment, the next biggest influence on passenger volumes was capacity offered (not, you note, price or congestion, which came a a long way behind). The same bit of work showed that pricing off demand long-term was almost impossible. Interestingly, RATP came to the same conclusion - I once asked their DG what the practical effect of the RER network had been on relieving congestion on the roads and the metro - his reply was that they had bought about 6 months' relief.

But yes, let's expand the system - and here comes another thread - the issue in London seems to be not so much the absence of new lines but the capacity of key existing stations to handle the volumes. We probably need new stations as much as new lines. [The capacity of existing stations is probably limited by the ability of 2 sets of escalators to shift the punters fast enough to clear the platforms, and double-ending the stations is very expensive].

Graham H

[snoggle]

May 19, 2012 11:55:30 GMT grahamhewett said:

@stig

You are right that there are only two ways out of this - more capacity/less demand. The problem with increasing capacity is that demand increases to reflect the capacity available (an unfortunate message that I spent much of my career concealing from the Treasury); in fact, the analyses we did showed that after Central London employment, the next biggest influence on passenger volumes was capacity offered (not, you note, price or congestion, which came a a long way behind). The same bit of work showed that pricing off demand long-term was almost impossible. Interestingly, RATP came to the same conclusion - I once asked their DG what the practical effect of the RER network had been on relieving congestion on the roads and the metro - his reply was that they had bought about 6 months' relief.

But yes, let's expand the system - and here comes another thread - the issue in London seems to be not so much the absence of new lines but the capacity of key existing stations to handle the volumes. We probably need new stations as much as new lines. [The capacity of existing stations is probably limited by the ability of 2 sets of escalators to shift the punters fast enough to clear the platforms, and double-ending the stations is very expensive].

Graham H

Interesting comment about capacity being a key driver of demand. There is, of course, plenty of contemporary evidence that this is the case. I recall seeing a presentation that the 7th car on the Jubilee Line brought about 10 weeks relief before the extra space was all used up. DLR, Overground and several bus routes show the same thing.

On the subject of the DLR I think they've got to the limit of what they can do with the current network. You can't make trains and stations any longer or else you have Herons Quays, Canary Wharf and West India Quay as all one station. I doubt much can be squeezed out of the signalling. If existing lines are extended to Dagenham or Bromley then there are potentially huge issues to be resolved as more people overload the network. Crossrail will bring some relief on some parts of the network but it won't solve things. How do you fix DLR without starting again with a higher capacity mode?

I agree on the stations point. So many LU locations are now hopelessly overloaded that a radical policy is needed to bolster capacity across a large number of stations. Unfortunately there is no sign whatsoever that the politicians recognise this problem.

[Deleted]

May 19, 2012 12:25:16 GMT snoggle said:

I recall seeing a presentation that the 7th car on the Jubilee Line brought about 10 weeks relief before the extra space was all used up.

Sadly London has arrived at public transport overload. As mentioned above, no improvements are likely to make much of a difference from now onwards due to the ridiculous influx of people to a metropolis already way past choking point. Cattle class, delays and various other inconveniences have become the norm and will only increase with time......and there's nothing that anyone can do about it. Good luck everybody.

[Deleted]

Thank you everyone for the comments, although things do seem to have gone off in another direction.

I went by car on Friday but now encouraged by this reliability I am now going to have, went off this Saturday morning to Westfield in Stratford, in part of course to look at new shoes to deal with Wednesdays problem - didnt get any in the end. But on our Beckton line, all the trains to Stratford are not running today. Even though on the website they say Good Service, so we are back to how it was before all the money was spent on the new Stratford route, getting the Jubilee from Canning Town. I wonder if these trains not running is also in the 2%, or, as Mr Aslefshrugged writes about, if its seen as "not their fault" then its not counted.